


What You Choose To Do With It

by StarsandJellyfish



Series: Psychic Sam [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Good Sibling Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Oblivious Sam Winchester, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Sam Winchester, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24420997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsandJellyfish/pseuds/StarsandJellyfish
Summary: Sam and Dean have finally got to a good place in their relationship, after the fiasco that was the few years Dean had the Mark. Now, weird things are happening all the time, and Sam has no idea what is going on or why. Dean is acting strangely, like he knows something Sam doesn't. Sam is just looking for an explanation that makes sense.Or five times Sam used his powers without knowing it, and one time he knew it and worried what Dean would think.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: Psychic Sam [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1846264
Comments: 47
Kudos: 161





	1. No Great Powers

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, 
> 
> I wrote this story simply because Sam's psychic powers fascinated me. I wanted to see more of them, but in a way that wasn't fuelled by demon blood. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. :)

No Great Powers

In the darkness behind his eyes, Sam could feel a pressure building. It felt like something was squeezing in his head, filling to the point of bursting and then beyond. When it finally did burst, he sat up with a gasp, hands flying to curl into his scruffy locks. Blinking the dark away, he shifted one hand from his hair, down over his sweat-slick skin and onto the fabric of his t-shirt. His fingers pressed into his chest, trying to soothe his wild-running heart. Behind him, his other hand twisted into the sheets, fingers clawing tightly at the rumpled material.

Slowly, his breathing became less laboured, his eyes roaming the room less wildly. Calmer, but still tense, he searched the room, eyes darting from corner to corner, shadow to shadow, desperate to ensure that no red eyes were staring out at him. When his search of the room came up clean, he heaved a sigh of relief and buried his face in his hands. Curling forward, eyes screwed shut tight and fingers digging into them, he tried to shake the last vestiges of his nightmare from his mind.

After a few minutes, he finally felt calm enough to uncover his face.

It was dark in his room, darker than it ordinarily would be.

Lips pulling downward in a frown, Sam turned his head and reached out beside him to turn the lamp on. He almost toppled sideways when his fingers encountered nothing and he reached further than he normally had to. With a startled cry, he caught himself on the desk, hissing in annoyance when his hand slipped over the edge of the bedtable and he bumped his sternum into the corner of it.

“Hugging the nightstand now?” a gruff voice asked. Sam tensed briefly, before relaxing again. It was only Dean. “What’s up, Sammy?”

Sitting up and rubbing at his sternum, Sam furrowed his eyebrows at his brother. The older man had stepped through the doorway and into the room now. As he swept past Sam and sat on the still-crisp side of the bed, the side Sam hadn’t slept on, he brought the clean scent of the freshly showered. Well, that explained what he was doing in Sam’s room, then. He’d heard the commotion and come to visit. It was typical Dean behaviour.

“Nightmare,” Sam admitted, hoping that minimal talking would get Dean to go away. He was tired, and the unrumpled pillow was calling to him, begging him to just put his head down once again. “I’m fine.”

“Yeah, not so much,” Dean gestured to Sam, and Sam looked to where Dean had been indicating. His shirt was pulled askew due to his fall, or maybe due to his distressed flailing, and the spot he’d hit was red and sore. Sweat was still beading on him, too. Reaching up, he swiped at his brow, grimacing as his hand came away wet.

“Really, Dean, it was just a dream,” flopping back down, Sam hoped his brother would take the hint. “Nothing to worry about. We all get them.”

How true was that? No matter how much he wished it weren’t so, he and his brother still got nightmares all the time. Hazard of the job, he guessed. Well, hazard of the job and also hazard of being the bad guy’s favourite playthings. Sam got the feeling that other hunters didn’t generally have to worry about Lucifer every night, or about Alastair or Abaddon or Metatron. Sometimes he wished he and Dean were still hunting in the little leagues.

“Well, if you say so,” Dean let it go, and Sam was grateful. There was no way he could talk about Lucifer with Dean. It wasn’t that his brother didn’t understand Hell, Sam knew he did, it was just that Dean would never understand the fear of seeing Lucifer’s true face, nor would he understand Sam’s fear that he had never _really_ left the Cage. It had been, after all, one of Lucifer’s favourite games to play, making Sam think he had escaped, only to drag him back into his twisted grasp once more. An involuntary shudder ran through Sam, and he pulled the fresher pillow to his chest.

Silence fell between them.

A few minutes later, Sam spoke up. “Dean, you’re still here.”

“Just thinkin’, Sammy,” Dean patted his arm, still-drying skin sticking to Sam’s sweat-clammy skin. Uncomfortable, Sam shifted away, hiding it in the movement of burying his face into the crisp pillow in his arms, breathing in the fresh-cotton scent from where he’d changed the sheets just that morning.

“What are you thinking about?” Sam asked, pulling the pillow away from his face and shoving it underneath his head. He rolled onto his side, punching the pillow a few times to reposition it into something more comfortable.

“Oh, you know,” a lazy hand waved through the air, and Dean gave Sam an amused look, the one Sam usually associated with Dean being an asshole. “What your lamp ever did to you?”

“What?” Sam asked, lifting his head from the pillow to squint at Dean. “My lamp?”

“Yeah, your lamp,” Sam heard a scraping sound on the floor and peeked over the side of the bed to see Dean toeing at the broken ceramic with his bare feet.

“Don’t do that,” Sam hissed, reaching out to grab Dean’s ankle in his hand. Dean shook his foot, attempting to free it. Feeling the shift in tendons and being uncomfortably reminded of how Lucifer liked to snap his own in two down in the Cage, Sam let go. “You’ll cut your feet.”

“I’ve had worse than a few slices in my feet,” Dean pointed out amiably. Making an affirmative sound at that, Sam lay back again. His brother didn’t start poking the ceramics with his toes again though, much to Sam’s relief. “But seriously, you flail around in your sleep?”

Sam looked at the still crisp side of the bed, the way the blankets were still tucked under the mattress on that side. He never really bothered with pulling them all out. The tightness of the sheets always helped to make him feel safer in his body, helped him feel like he wasn’t going to float out of it and away. He assumed it was a left-over from being possessed, though he couldn’t have said for sure. Maybe he had felt like this before Hell, before Meg, but it had been lifetimes. He couldn’t remember that far back with any great accuracy.

“Must have,” Sam was hesitant, measured. The side of the bed the lamp was on really suggested that Sam hadn’t been close enough, even if he had flailed, to knock it off the nightstand. Still, there wasn’t any other explanation. There were no ghosts left in the Bunker, they’d seen to that after Kevin, purified the whole place just to be sure. He gave a tight not. “Yeah, must have.”

Dean was squinting at him again, head cocked as if he were searching for something on Sam’s face. Meeting his eyes, Sam tried to school his features into something that resembled innocence. He wasn’t really sure why he felt guilty, or why he felt as if he needed to prove to Dean that whatever had happened, he had had nothing to do with it, but still, the urge was there. After a few seconds of Dean’s luminous eyes flickering over Sam’s face, he gave a sharp nod.

“Okay, Sammy,” he agreed, making a move to get up. Sam almost told him to be careful over the broken lamp, but bit his lip against it. Dean wasn’t a baby, and he didn’t appreciate being treated as one. A heavy pat landed on Sam’s leg, making him jump. “Get some rest.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, bestowing Dean with a tight smile. His brother sent him one back. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

“Well, sleep tight,” Dean’s voice had its usual friendly mockery to it. Shaking his head, Sam flipped the pillow then buried his face in it, smelling fresh linen and feeling the crisp cool of the fresh side of it. Pressing his chin against the material, he hid his smile. “Get some sleep.”

Dean stepped out into the corridor, swinging the door closed behind him with a soft creak. Before he closed it all the way, Sam raised his head a little from the pillow, meeting his brother’s eyes through sleep-blurred hazel ones.

“Dean?” Dean paused, hand soft around the handle of the door, a rare gentle expression on his face. “You too.”

A soft upturn to his lips let Sam know that Dean wasn’t annoyed with his ‘chick-flick nature’ as he’d described it once. He gave a friendly nod, then swung the door shut fully, leaving Sam in darkness. Normally, that would freak him out, but after his brother’s visit to his room, he was feeling relaxed and comfortable. Breathing out gently, he rolled onto his stomach and hugged his pillow to himself under his head, flicking his head back a little to get his hair off of his face.

Calmed and tired, Sam let himself drift off.


	2. Some Kind of Magic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean are hunting when something odd happens, leaving both brothers a little rattled. Later, Dean thinks he knows something, but Sam's really not sure what it is Dean wants to hear.

Some Kind of Magic

Silver trunks loomed out of the darkness like silent sentries, imposing, intimidating. Something shifted in the shadows, circling the brothers the way wolves circled their prey, closing in with each pass. Keeping his breath steady, Sam held his gun at the ready, fingers curled loose and easy around the handle. It wouldn’t do to tense up, to start shooting at random, no matter the decreased visibility the swirling mist gave them. The moonlight was bright between the trees. If the figure would just stop moving, they could get a clear shot at him.

At his right shoulder, limping somewhat due to a sewn and stitched leg, Dean kept watch. He’d given Sam the lead on this hunt after he was injured enough that Sam would have left him behind. It was only Dean’s barely veiled threat to follow after Sam and hunt through the woods alone that made Sam agree to Dean coming with him.

The wound slowed him, made him sloppy, and while Sam knew that Dean was still the best hunter out there, he couldn’t help the curl of worry knotting in his gut. An amazing hunter Dean may be, but infallible he was not. All it would take was one well-aimed blow, one lucky knife, and the brothers Winchester would be no more, leaving Sam alone and desperate once again. Feeling like that wasn’t something Sam enjoyed to any degree, or even at all, so he kept one watchful eye on his heavy-footed brother.

A cruel laugh echoed throughout the trunks, bouncing off the peeling bark and taunting them. With so many trees distorting the sound, Sam couldn’t tell which direction it had come from. Ahead of him, Sam could see a silhouette, statue-still but humanoid. Behind him, there was the crunching sound that only came from an uncareful human stepping on twigs. There was no sound quite like it, and it was a sound Sam knew well.

Sucking a chilled breath through his teeth, regretting it when it whistled into his mouth, Sam loosened himself even more. He’d react quicker if he weren’t tense, if his muscles weren’t all tightened into stiff achy knots before he even had to use them. The silhouette began to melt, sucking inwards and downwards, and eventually splitting into two different shapes entirely, the dead trunks of trees fading into view in the shining moonlight.

Just as Sam was about to relax, Dean let out a cry beside him.

Whipping his head around to see the cause, Sam saw Dean clutching his arm, dark wetness pooling around his brother’s clutching hand, staining the sleeve of his jacket. Unable to focus on Dean’s wound, Sam darted his eyes away quick, gun rising to the ready, pointing over Dean’s shoulder. Whatever had hit Dean had to have come from there; it would have hit Sam first, otherwise.

“What was it?” Sam asked, the air sharp and cold as it sliced into his lungs. “What got you?”

“A… knife,” Dean declared, green eyes narrowing at something on the floor behind Sam’s feet. “What kind of werewolf uses a knife?”

Resisting the urge to shrug, Sam gestured over Dean’s shoulder with his chin. No longer squinting at the blade, flashing dangerously in the moonlight, Dean turned his gun in the direction the knife had come from. Nothing stirred between the silent trunks.

Huffing in frustration, Sam turned again, gun held protectively in front of him. Studying each direction the knife-wielding heart-stealer could possibly come from, eyes darting over each corridor between the trees as quick as the knife had sliced through Dean’s skin, Sam determined that they’d lost his direction _again_. They were never going to find him like this.

Shoulders tensing in frustration, he signalled to Dean to continue moving into the forest. There was a clearing a few meters from where they were standing. The mist was only curling through the forest, it’s freezing clutch relaxing in the open. If they got to the clearing, they’d be more open and easy to attack, but they’d see their attacker coming, too. It wasn’t a brilliant strategy, but on a gloomy night like that, it was the best strategy they had.

Just as they reached the edge of the clearing, the grass gleaming grey and dew-dusted in the silvery light of the moon, Sam felt his hair stand on end. The prickling sensation travelled from his forearms, up to the back of his neck, his collar catching uncomfortably against the tiny hairs. Next to him, Sam felt Dean tense; he had felt it, too.

Something behind them gave an almighty push, a hand slamming into their backs and throwing them into the clearing. Stumbling and staggering, clutching at each other to keep their balance, Sam and Dean only looked round in time to see the darkened figure stalking out after them, confidence keeping their stride relaxed, their shoulders low. Nerves began to bubble in the pit of Sam’s stomach.

“Well, well, well,” the voice was deep, falsely conversational. Something about it made Sam feel grimy, unclean. “Look who we have here. Two hero-types, trying to take on the monster. You’ll soon find that the monster isn’t something you want to take on boys.” He paused, giving a soft chuckle. “Not that you’ll be taking on anything after tonight.”

Flashes of the corpses they’d investigated, slashed beyond recognition, a deep, gaping hole where the heart was meant to be, ran through Sam’s head. The backs of his eyelids were painted with the scarlet stains and the gory gashes. As one, they raised their guns, both aiming for the figure’s heart.

“You don’t want to do that,” he suggested, swaggering forwards. Sam furrowed his brow. Next to him, Dean cocked his head.

“And why’s that?” Dean asked, gruff and strained. He wasn’t saying anything, but Sam knew the hike up to the clearing had winded him, pained him. The slice on his arm wasn’t helping, the blood soaking the material enough to be beading on the sleeve, dripping to the floor at Dean’s feet. Sam could smell the iron tang on the air, mixed with the fresh-cold forest scents.

“Because I’m quicker,” the figure declared. Only able to see a small movement, no clear lines visible, Sam was surprised when a knife came flying from the silhouette of a sleeve.

It was aimed directly at Sam, wicked tip pointing at him, the edge of the blade smiling at him in the moonlight. Time slowed down, or it seemed to, as Sam saw the knife’s directory, saw he was about to be skewered by it, ran right through. Closing his eyes, Sam felt the swooping sensation in his stomach, felt the sheer dread rising up in him that he was about to leave Dean alone, about to be struck straight in the heart. Blood pounded in his ears, blocking out all other sound as he felt the adrenaline burst through his system, wishing the knife was aimed just a little to the side of him.

Hunching down into himself, he waited.

…And waited.

When no blade hit him, Sam turned to Dean immediately, dread unlike any other rising in his chest, choking his breaths off. What if it hadn’t hit him, but his brother?

Next to him, Dean stood with wide eyes, green turned silver in the moonlight. He was staring off behind Sam, body still angled towards the figure. Silhouetted against the imposing backdrop, the monster had stopped moving too. Something about the way he stood suggested he was confused. Sam furrowed his brow; he was puzzled too.

Throwing a glance behind him, eyes following Dean’s gaze, he saw what Dean saw. Eyebrows raising, he blinked once, twice, three times, but was still seeing it. The knife was imbedded in a tree on the other side of the clearing, one to the left of where Sam had been standing. Buried to its hilt in bark, deeper than any reasonable throw would allow for, was the blade. Around it, splinters spread like starbursts, bitingly sharp.

Seconds passed, all three of them staring at the blade, before Sam remembered what they were doing there. Easily, Sam pulled his gun up, training it on the figure. It raised its hands, fingers obviously round-tipped, blunt. Confusion spiked again.

“Dean,” Sam hissed, leaning his head closer to Dean’s. In return, Dean leaned back, his breath curling warm and smoky in the frigid air. “He’s not a werewolf.”

Risking a glance at his brother, Sam saw as Dean traced his eyes over the man’s fingertips and saw what Sam had seen. The moonlight was shining down, full and bright upon the figure as he stepped out of the moonlight. Tar-black irises peered at them out of the gloom, no flaring yellow to be seen. While still snarling, his mouth was completely human, no enormous canines to be seen. He wouldn’t be cleaving any flesh from bones with those.

“What the Hell?” Dean asked, confusion colouring his tone. “Dude, we came here for a werewolf.”

“Yeah, but the slices were weird,” Sam shrugged, gesturing with his gun that the man had come far enough. He stopped dead in his tracks, apparently unarmed. “Too clinical. This makes sense. It’s been a human the whole time.”

“Ew,” Dean groaned, shaking his head. Moonlight bounced off his face, throwing his freckles into stark contrast with his whitewashed skin. “Humans. They’re sick, man.”

“No kidding,” Sam snorted, pursing his lips. His hair fell into his face as he shook his own head, sending a disparaging look at the man. No shame flickered across his features, making Sam’s disgust increase tenfold. This man wasn’t even guilty that he’d killed all those women, though Sam should have expected it, really. He’d cut out their hearts and presumably kept them, after all. “He _thinks_ he’s a monster.”

“Oh, he’s a monster alright,” Dean’s voice was harsh, unforgiving. “Just not the sort of monster we normally hunt. Let’s cuff him, leave him at the station.”

Nodding at his brother, Sam moved forwards, intent on finishing the job they’d come here to do.

…………………

Hours later, Sam pressed his foot down on the pedal, hearing the purr as the Impala rumbled out of town. While he may not have loved the Impala in quite the same (dare he say fetish-y way) that Dean loved her, he did appreciate everything about her all the same. She had been his childhood home; he wasn’t going to _hate_ her after growing up in her impenetrable walls, was he?

Groaning softly, Dean shifted next to him, sliding against the supple leather. His leg was stretched out as far as it could be in the space, a little more than he’d ordinarily have since Sam had adjusted the seat for his own ease of driving. With Dean wearing only a wrinkled t-shirt, the stolen bandage wrapped around Dean’s arm was visible in Sam’s periphery. A few ruby dots marred the otherwise white cotton, encouraging Sam to press down on the gas just a little more. They’d have to change Dean’s bandage soon.

“Dude, what’s the hurry?” Dean asked. His undamaged arm was tucked behind his head. If it weren’t for the uncomfortable noises he made every so often, Sam would have thought he was having the time of his life, letting the breeze from the window run through his sandy hair. “Relax and enjoy Baby. She’s a classy lady. You have to take your time.”

“Like you do?” there was amusement in his voice, thick over the tight worry. Corners of his lips tilted upwards, he sent a smirk towards Dean. “I happen to know you enjoy going fast.”

“Not with Baby, little brother,” Running his hands over the dashboard, barely wincing as he did, Dean sent a loving look towards his car. “She’s special.” Sitting back in his seat, Dean turned his honest face towards Sam. “But seriously, what gives?”

“We need to change your bandages,” Dean looked down at his arm at that, eyebrows raising when they caught the polka-dots on the threads. “You didn’t notice?”

“Nah,” Dean shook his head, a grin tugging his lips again. He’d caught the sun while they were driving, his forehead and the tip of his nose tinged a warm red. Freckles darkened on his skin, more gathering as the summer went on. By the end of it, his face would be speckled like an egg, though Dean would deny it until he was blue in the face, and probably even then. “You did a good job, Sammy.”

“I know,” Sam determined, flicking on the blinker to indicate he was turning into a town. Dean snorted a little, never one to indicate when there weren’t other cars around, but Sam was a creature of habits. He couldn’t help himself. “I always do.” They fell silent for a few moments, breathing in the delightful scent of freshly cut grass and growing flowers. Hair blowing around his face, Sam couldn’t help the frown he sported. “I just can’t believe he was using throwing knives like that. People, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed, turning to face the passing houses. He tucked his good arm out the window, fingers drumming a barely audible pattern into the gleaming paint of the door. “For a minute there, I thought you were gonna be a kebob.”

“So did I, dude,” his chuckles were a little more nervous than he’d like, but to be fair it was a Hell of a memory. Succumbing to Billie’s gloating embrace wasn’t at the top of Sam’s bucket list. “Saw the knife coming right at me. I thought it was going to hit me in the chest.”

“I did, too,” Dean admitted, the tightness of his throat straining his voice. Sam knew the idea of his death was a near-impossible one for Dean to come to terms with, so he let him off without teasing. His voice was harder when he continued. “But it didn’t.”

Squinting into the sunlight, Sam flipped the visor down and shrugged at the same time. “What can I say, man? We must have been seeing it from a funny angle. Don’t tell me the whole atmosphere of that forest wasn’t off.”

“Really?” Dean’s voice was probing. When he turned back to Sam, golden beams playing on his face, piercing eyes glowing green in the sunlight, a thick brow was raised. “That what happened?”

“Must have been,” Sam pursed his lip, unsure what angle Dean was trying to get at. He didn’t know what else it could have been. Sam hadn’t done anything, Dean hadn’t done anything, the guy… “Maybe the guy just wasn’t as good at throwing as he thought.”

Full lips tightened at that, incredulous eyes turning Sam’s way.

“What?” defensiveness coiled in his gut, keeping his widened eyes fixed on the road ahead. “He only caught your arm, didn’t he?”

Scarred hands came up to fold over the bandage, eyes dropping to study the gearstick between them. Silence hung heavy between them, a bubble of tenseness between only them, blocking out the birdsong and the hum of the Impala. Neither brother dared move, for fear of popping it.

Finally, Dean heaved a great sigh, “I guess you’re right, Sam.”

Nodding his head, knowing his brother didn’t really believe him, Sam continued driving. They were leaving the little town for the countryside again, a shady forest on one side of them, rolling fields on the other. As they drove, the shattered remnants of the bubble blew out of the window, leaving the brothers feeling light once again.

Sam was just settling into the zone in his driving when Dean spoke up again.

“You know you can tell me anything, don’t you?” the words were directed at the wingmirror on Dean’s side of the car, but Sam knew they were meant for him.

“I know,” he confirmed, voice soft. It wasn’t often Dean tried to get him talking, though Sam wasn’t really sure what he was supposed to be talking about this time.

Green eyes shifted from the right side of the car to the left, irises peeking out of the corner of crow-lined eyes. They stayed fixed on Sam for a few seconds, Sam keeping his body as open and honest as possible, shoulders loosened, free, face blank. When Dean had looked his fill, had apparently found what he wanted to find, he nodded, turning his attention back onto the road.

With that, he settled back into his seat, folding his arms over his sweat-stained t-shirt. Leaning his head back against the seat, he closed his eyes, indicating that he was snoozing for a bit. Smiling softly, Sam switched on the radio and opened his window a little further, heading back to the Bunker, back to their home, knowing they’d stop only once, when they were far enough away from the town they hunted in, to change Dean’s bandage. From there, all he could do was put the weird, unsettling hunt out of his mind and move on like it hadn’t happened. Business as usual, then.


	3. Powers Not Yet Acknowledged

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions are running high while on a hunt, leaving the boys fighting. They're mid argument when something odd happens. Sam is sure he has an explanation for it, but Dean doesn't seem convinced.

Powers Not Yet Acknowledged 

Gritting his teeth as he stalked over the threshold in the tumble-down house they were squatting in, Sam tried to ignore his brother. Already furious from the previous night, were Dean had lost them all their motel money in an attempt to hustle (a rare occurrence, but it did happen), his brother’s moaning behind him wasn’t improving Sam’s mood.

They’d just got back from their first day on the hunt, Sam bleeding mildly from a scratch on his cheek. It was shallow, unlikely to scar, and honestly it didn’t even hurt that much. A faint tug from the edges knitting together where it was beginning to scab was all he felt. Pride at his having saved a child had also been bubbling in his chest, before Dean’s gruff annoyance caused the feeling to pop like a bubble, irritation flooding into the space left behind.

Throwing his duffle down onto the splintering floorboards, Sam turned around to face his brother, lips pressed tight and bloodless white together.

“I saved a kid today, Dean,” Sam said through gritted teeth. His brother hadn’t been expecting Sam to stop, so Dean had continued walking. They were nose to nose, Dean blinking his moss green eyes in brief confusion. “Don’t tell me that wasn’t worth it.”

“Not if the cost is your life, Sam,” Dean’s voice was angry. Neither brother wanted to step back, to concede to the other, so they stayed as close as they were. Sam could smell the peppermint gum and stale whiskey on his brother’s breath. “Ain’t no kid worth that.”

“Don’t say that,” Sam watched as his brother folded his arms over his chest, raising his chin higher. It was a tactic Dean always used, trying to act imperious, but it had stopped working on a standing Sam years ago. Being taller had its advantages. “How often do we get to save anyone anymore?”

Dean was lost for words for a moment, full lips hanging open as he grasped for something to say, anything. Shaking it off, he narrowed his eyes, tilting his head and leaning in closer. “That doesn’t mean you don’t wait for back up, Sam.” His momentary pause was forgotten, voice plaintive and rough. “Nobody hunts without a partner.”

“Dad did and you know it,” he argued, lips curling up in disgust. He knew Dean had a point, but the way Dean was reacting was getting on his nerves. Sam had always been fiercely independent, and when Dean wanted him to hide behind him like a cowering child, he always felt his hackles raising, his independence railing against the imposed rules. “Besides, if I had waited for backup, the kid would have been taken. I barely caught up to her as it is.”

He was telling the truth. When he’d found the kid, Hercules (he knew it was weird. Hercules was meant to be a good guy, but then, so were angels, and look how they turned out) had her trapped under his arm, blonde braids swinging as she screamed and kicked. Seeing her terror, Sam hadn’t hesitated to throw himself at the demi-God, knowing even at the time that it was dangerous.

Facing a demi-God was never an easy task, so it was a task the brothers tended to face together. There were hunts in which they’d split up to face Gods or demi-Gods alone, but it was only when necessity called for it, like when they were hunting Calliope and Sam had been trapped in the basement, forced apart from his brother with the God in question. This time, Dean had simply been too far behind him to help, and Sam had had the opportunity _then_ , and then alone.

The tussle was over almost before it began. Hercules hadn’t been expecting any mere mortal to throw themselves at him, no matter if they were hunters or not. He’d dropped the little girl in surprise, her grazing her knees on the gravel speckled mud. Realising what he had done, he’d tried to snatch her back again, fingers catching in the collar of her jacket, but with amazing presence of mind, the little girl had slipped her arms out of the sleeves.

After that, Sam had picked her up, ready to hurry her back to the house. Hercules had taken his bow and aimed at Sam, giving Sam only just enough time to dodge to the side before an arrow came flying towards his head. Shifting just enough, Sam had felt the stinging kiss of the arrow as it scraped his cheek, the burst of pain and the dripping of sticky blood down his face, but he’d made it back into the house in time, the little girl clutching her fingers tightly into his sleeve where his arm was around her middle, jostling her up and down as he ran back.

When he’d reached the house again, slipping and sliding on the rain-wet hill, he’d seen Dean’s face, and known his brother was going to tear into him when they were alone.

So there they were, mid-argument.

“So we would have found her,” Dean bit out, unlocking his arms and throwing his shoulders in his frustration. He took a step backwards, ramping up his attitude to compensate for the move. “You didn’t have to risk your life for it.”

“We’re hunters, Dean,” Resisting the urge to tug on his hair, Sam squinted his eyes at Dean. Dean was pacing, heavy boots clomping on the floor, making a faint scraping noise against the dried wood. “Risking our lives is what we _do_.”

“Yeah, well,” Again Dean shrugged, running frantic hands through his sandy-blond hair. When he turned back to Sam, strands were sticking up in all directions. He looked a little like a startled hedgehog. “Not _your_ life.”

“What makes _my_ life any more important, huh?” Sam argued, feeling a pressure building up inside of him. There was something tight in his head, his chest, pushing hard against his insides, desperate to get out. Taking a deep breath of the mouldy, musty air, Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “What makes _my_ life so important that I shouldn’t risk it?”

“Because I said so!” Spat his brother, throwing his arms out wide. His jacket swung violently with the movement, green material swinging out behind him. “And you’ll do what I say, Sam!”

Something in Sam’ snapped. “IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT, DEAN!” he bellowed. Dean took a startled step back, stumbling a little over the litter-strewn floor. Sam knew why; it wasn’t often he became truly furious anymore, having changed much after his experience in the Cage. “YOU CAN’T JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”

With his furious shout, the pressure in his chest blew outwards. He felt like he was expanding, filling up space that he didn’t know he could. He was the centre of the circle, but also wide around it, outside the house and inside other rooms. Whatever this feeling was, it wasn’t normal, but he couldn’t shake it, couldn’t make it go away. Surprised green eyes darted to Sam’s face, wild and confused. Something about the way Dean was holding himself, the tense lines of his body trying its hardest not to curl into itself, made Sam flinch. _He_ had done this, though he didn’t know how.

Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, disregarding the copper-tinged smell of the house that hadn’t been there just moments before, Sam tried to suck himself inwards. It was a difficult task, one that drew most of his focus away from his brother and into the outer reaches of his consciousness.

For some reason, it _really_ _did_ feel like he was extending beyond the shell of his body, occupying more space than any one person should. He could feel the gentle breeze from outside, practically taste the pine-scented air. Something flickered at the edge of his senses, something foreign and strange, but Sam shook it off. He wasn’t really outside. He was inside, in a mouldering room, in a fight with his hot-headed brother. Sucking himself inwards, downwards, tightly into himself, he felt his boundaries shrinking. Growling in frustration, he yanked the last bit of himself towards the centre of the room.

A shattering startled them both.

Shards were flying towards them, diamonds catching the light and tearing viciously into their skin. Even where their skin didn’t tear, little red scratches appeared, like a cat had clawed its displeasure into their skin. Crashing glass cascaded to the floor, a waterfall breaking over a rock and hitting the bottom in broken droplets, meeting together in a pool at the bottom. Sam and Dean were standing in the pool, boots covered over by the shimmering waves of glass.

“What the—” Dean murmured, before shooting his gaze over to Sam. Narrowed eyes studied Sam, the green dulled by the darkness of the house and the cloudy weather outside. “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” Sam shook his head, hazel eyes flickering over the destruction around them. A breeze blew through the window, lifting Sam’s locks and blowing them around his head. Some glass tinkled to the floor from his hair, throwing the little light they caught around the room. As the wind continued blowing softly, glass left in the frame became loose and tumbled to the floor, chiming as it landed amongst the lake of truly tiny glass grains. “Do you think it was Hercules?”

“Where’s the arrow?” Raising his eyebrow, Dean sent Sam a look that suggested he thought Sam was stupid. Feeling a little hurt by his brother’s insinuation, Sam huffed and moved a few steps forward, crunching the glass like gravel under his heavy boots. “Don’t you think we would have noticed it? Or heard it hitting the window?”

“You _didn’t_ hear the window shatter?” Incredulously, Sam turned to look at his brother. Really, it couldn’t be missed, could it? “Because you’re right here, Dean.”

“I heard the window shatter, idiot,” Dean griped, taking the initiative to walk to the frame and peer out. Hercules didn’t seem to leave the forest, which was quite a distance back from the house. Neither brother could see properly, but nothing moved in the undergrowth. Tentatively, Dean rested his palms on the windowsill, fingertips curling over the edge to rest on the terracotta bricks below. “What I didn’t hear was anything that sounded like an arrow hitting the glass.”

Sam knew his brother was right. If the arrow had struck the glass, they would have heard the initial contact, not only the sound of shattering pane.

Copying his brother’s actions, Sam picked his way to the frame and placed his hands down. His pinky finger brushed Dean’s, but neither brother made any move to snatch their hands back. The warmth of his brother’s rough-calloused skin was nice against his own cold-stiffened hands.

Studying the treeline, Sam’s hazel eyes moved slowly from left to right, taking in every detail he could. Beside him, he knew his brother’s eyes would be darting around more wildly, method to the madness, trying to pick out any movement. Dean searched, Sam scanned; that was the way they always worked.

As he scanned, Sam’s eyes caught on something. There was a wooden stick, poking out of the side of the frame. From where he was standing, Dean wouldn’t be able to see it, Sam’s taller frame blocking the shaft of the arrow from view. Nudging his brother’s shoulder with his own, Sam directed Dean’s gaze to the arrow with a point of his chin. Confused eyes widened when they saw the wooden stick, then narrowed as they took in the arrowhead.

“It shouldn’t have shattered the window,” Dean announced, fixing his gaze on where the arrow sat. The pointed tip of the arrow was stuck in the rotting frame of the window, splinters flaring out around it like a tiny explosion. Dean was right though, Sam noted. Where it was sitting, it wouldn’t have touched the glass, wouldn’t have caused the damage that had occurred. So what _had_ caused it? All the boys knew now was that Hercules was certain of where they were. “Something else must have done it.”

“Unless the arrows are magic,” Sam suggested with a shrug, reaching his hand out to curl around the arrow. The wood was warm, humming slightly with power. A sense of smug satisfaction wound its way through him when he was proved right. Extricating the arrow from the frame with ease, the wood disintegrating to the touch like a pinned moth’s wings, Sam handed it to Dean. Gun-calloused fingers curled around the shaft the second Dean felt the hum of power within. “It might have caused a shockwave or something. I mean, you felt something off earlier, right? When we were arguing?”

“Yeah,” the way Dean said it made it sound like a dismissal, as if he didn’t believe Sam about the arrow being the cause of the strange feelings, but Sam didn’t know what else it could have been. Neither brother had touched anything cursed as far as they knew, and neither was dabbling in witchcraft right then. The only variable in the equation compared to their normal arguments was the arrow, hitting the window frame. It had to be the cause. “I guess so, Sam.”

“Besides,” Sam said, stepping away from the window and back into the darkness and shelter of the paint-peeling walls. “We don’t have time to worry about this right now. We know Hercules knows where we are, so we know we’re not safe.”

“You’re right,” a decisive nod accompanied Dean’s words, before Dean crossed the room to pick up their duffels. “We have a hunt to complete. You can figure this out later.”

Sam agreed, nodding his head. Fight forgotten, he followed after his brother, arrow still clutched in his tingling fingers. In front of him, Dean’s back was tense, hard lines visible under the thick material of his jacket. The way he held himself told Sam he was wary, and Sam could guess why. They were hunting a demi-God. It wasn’t hard to find a reason.

Hurrying out to the car, vigilant watches kept on everything around them, Sam and Dean prepared themselves for the hunt. Leaving their fight behind them, briefly tucking away the strange phenomena in the dilapidated house, they clambered into the car and Dean started the engine. They had a demi-God to kill, and they couldn’t afford any distractions.


	4. Not Nearly As Important As Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean are on a hunt in a graveyard when things start going wrong. Dean is injured, and Sam is left fighting something that cannot be a ghost, not with the powers it seems to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I hope you enjoy this chapter. This one has some violence in it. I think it's canon-typical, maybe less? Also, sorry about the erratic updates. I have some funny shift times, which means that, as this fic gets updated when I'm not working or asleep, I have odd update times. Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy. :)

Not Nearly as Important as Him

Sam directed a grim smile at Dean over the roof of the Impala, barely visible in the dark. Moonlight lit them from above, throwing faint reflections into the roof of Baby as Sam slipped crumpled paper from his pocket. Directions were written on the wrinkled paper, difficult to read in the glooming dark of the night. Nevertheless, Sam squinted down at his own writing and tried to recall what was written, a task made more difficult by the fact that Dean had been throwing particularly rank socks at him when he was writing his instructions down.

“So?” Dean asked, rapping his hand lightly on the roof of the Impala. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Sam studied the paper, head tilted bird-like to the side. “It’s to the right of the cemetery, I think.”

“Oh, real helpful, Sam,” Dean griped, rounding the car to open the trunk. Within seconds, a shovel was flying Sam’s way, plucked easily out of the air by his quick reflexes. “Somewhere to the right, he says. Like that helps.”

Dean turned, heading off into the cemetery with a flashlight in one hand, the other hand holding his shovel slung over his shoulder. Pursing his lips, Sam snatched up the shotgun and headed after Dean, hurrying to match his brother’s fast steps.

“Your socks didn’t help, either,” he pointed out, softening his steps when he heard the crackling of yellowing grass under his feet. It had been a hot day, the sticky heat of it still permeating the air, cloying on Sam’s skin. Resisting the urge to pluck at his shirt, peel the material back from his flesh, Sam lowered his voice. “They stank, dude. When was the last time you cleaned them?”

“Few days ago,” Dean was still relaxed, wouldn’t tense up until the ghost came to show itself. This was a simple hunt and burn, and it had really played out that way this time. Honestly, Sam was shocked, but he didn’t hate the ease of the hunt. In fact, he actually quite liked it. It gave them some time to rest. “Remember the bog? Before that.”

“Dean, we hit the Bunker after the bog. It has washers.” Dodging the shoulder Dean tried to drive into his, Sam let out a soft laugh. Through the darkness, Dean’s eyes sparkled as they met Sam’s, crows-feet crinkling the skin around his eyes. “What did you do instead of using them, huh?”

“A little bit of this, a little bit of that, Sammy,” Dean grinned at him, wide enough to display the chip to his canine he’d got on a hunt years ago. “Besides, washing is your job.”

Rolling his eyes and shaking his head, Sam turned his gaze away from Dean.

A cool breeze blew through the cemetery, shaking the trees around the edges and cooling the sweat glistening on Sam’s skin. Goosebumps rose on his arms, his hairs standing on end, and he barely resisted the urge to shiver. The scent of dying flowers tickled his nose, a sneeze rising it’s head before being swallowed down, his tongue touching the roof his mouth to prevent it. Next to him, Dean met his eyes, his own a little widened.

“Something’s wrong. We should—” A scream tore through the cemetery, echoing off the graves and curling around them, clenching them in its grip. Something was holding them in place, leaving them unable to move and defenceless. Sam felt as if his feet had been superglued to the ground, stuck fast and held tight. “Dean!”

“I know Sam!” Next to him, Dean was frantically flickering the torch between each path, searching for the familiar tell-tail shimmer of a ghost. None came. “Where is it?”

“There!” As he said it, Sam was already raising the sawed-off and firing, shovel dropped on the ground at his feet. His body twisted around at an awkward position, he let out a gritted yell as the recoil forced his muscles into even odder positions. He missed, his body incapable of stretching far enough. “I can’t get to it!”

“Hang on a minute,” Dean cried, holding the flashlight in his mouth. His teeth clamped into the metal of the handle, mouth stretched wide to accommodate it. His hand was fumbling into his pocket, fingers reaching for… for… salt! He had salt in his hand. “I’ve got an idea.”

Huffing out a breath, Sam continued aiming for the ghost as it came towards them. It was still a few meters away, but the chill in the air was increasing, frost forming on the grass. Ghosts normally stole the heat out of the area they appeared in, but this was insane. Sam’s breath was a cloud obscuring his sight-line as Dean contorted his body next to him, reaching his arm back at an angle to sprinkle salt at Sam’s feet. What was he doing?

As the salt hit Sam’s shoes, whatever was sticking his feet in place released him suddenly. He almost tilted over, stumbling and only managing to catch himself on a gravestone. Wincing at his graceless move, sending silent and hurried apologies to whoever’s grave he’d landed on, he re-aimed his gun and fired it at the ghost. It screamed again, piercing and furious.

He hit dead centre, dissolving the figure.

Dean stumbled, cursing lowly as he slid on the suddenly-wet grass. With the ghost gone, the chill had gone with it, and the heat swept back in, oppressing them again. The silence was thick, heavy between the boys.

Sharing a wild-eyed glance with Dean, Sam shook his head. Whatever had just happened, they weren’t used to it.

“What the Hell?” Dean asked, lips pursing harshly. “Since when can ghosts do that?”

“Since now,” Sam huffed, still trying to catch his breath. In one fist, his sawed-off was still clutched tight, the metal of the gun biting into his fingers. With his other, he reached down and picked up his shovel again. “We better get going. Quickly.”

“Yeah, I hear ya,” Dean agreed, gesturing with his flashlight to carry on. Bright light burned Sam’s eyes for a moment, leaving him blinking to clear them. That was all the time it took for his hair to stand on end once again.

It started as a prickle at the back of his neck, but it wasn’t even seconds before his whole body was awash with the sensation.

“The ghost’s back,” he whispered to Dean, dropping the shovel once more. Really, they could do with a rucksack for these sorts of jobs. He considered mentioning it to Dean, but his brother looked more concerned with other matters. Well, actually he looked constipated, his face screwed up tight as he studied Sam. “Dean, the flashlight. I need some light.”

“What do you mean, the ghost’s back?” he asked, his tone rougher. Sam knew it for what it was: worry. “Sam, it’s quiet. There’s nothing here.”

“I can feel it,” Sam hissed, the prickling sensation becoming uncomfortable. “Seriously, Dean. Some light.”

“Alright,” Dean shook his head like Sam was crazy, but raised the flashlight anyway. He did it in an almost reluctant manner, slow enough to tell Sam that he was only doing it to humour his brother. That didn’t matter right then, though. Sam was on the lookout for the tall-ish figure, the ragged clothes hanging off the skinny translucent frame. “Have at it, Sammy.”

Quick study of every possible direction left Sam none the wiser. The ghost was here, he could _feel_ it, but he couldn’t see it. Seconds passed, but nothing came out of the darkness. Just as he was about to give up, he felt the air freezing again, the sweat on his skin chilling him to the very bone as it cooled. If it got much colder, he would be cracking ice off his skin as he moved.

“I guess you were right,” Dean allowed, spinning with more purpose now. He backed a little closer to Sam, so much so that his shoulder brushed Sam’s own. “Something’s definitely coming.”

Rolling his eyes, Sam ignored his brother to focus on the task at hand. Nothing stirred, though their breath was misting on the air. How were they missing it?

Sam felt movement behind him.

He spun just in time to see a shadowy shape rush past him, slamming into Dean’s back. It sent him flying with a yell, flashlight giving out disco strobing as it soared from Dean’s hand, landing with a clatter a few graves away. At the same time, Dean plummeted like a stone, landing on a gravestone with a sickening crack. He let out a bellow Sam had rarely heard his brother make.

Breaths coming in quick, he rushed over to his brother and knelt by him, sawed-off still held tightly in a readied grip. Their breaths were no longer clouding before them, but that didn’t mean they were safe. Sam’s hairs were still standing on end like an overly-sensitive alarm system, sending a blaring warning right into his skull. He could barely think through it, but Dean came first. Dean always came first.

“Dean, are you alright?” he heaved, his breath a little shallow from the exertion of his mini-sprint to Dean’s side. His brother was sprawled on the ground, groaning and rolling a little. He appeared dizzy, blinking up at the moon with fuzzy eyes. “Dean, talk to me.”

Patting Dean’s face sharply, not enough to hurt but enough to annoy, Sam brought Dean out of whatever pained stupor he was in and back into the moment. Dean let out a drawn-out moan as his eyes rolled around, searching for Sam’s face. Skin pale and clammy, freckles stark in the moonlight, Dean turned to face Sam.

“My leg,” he grit out, fingers clutching tightly around Sam’s spare wrist. Sam could feel the small bones grinding and he winced, shifting his hand to try and extricate it gently. “My leg, Sammy.”

“Okay, Dean,” Sam nodded, shifting his focus from Dean’s face to his legs. One of them was perfectly okay, hooked over the back of a grave as it was. Sam knew Dean would have some serious bruising at the back of that knee, but he would be ultimately fine. The other leg was a different story.

Blood was staining the material of Dean’s jeans, black and sticky-thick in the moonlight. Thanking Chuck for it being a full moon, Sam ignored the pricking sensation down his spine and gingerly lifted the material of Dean’s pants, resisting the urge to wince when he saw the damage. Dean wouldn’t be walking on it any time soon, that was for sure.

“It’s going to be okay, Dean,” Sam promised, rolling the denim back down. Dean didn’t need to see the casualty right then, didn’t need to see the way his leg was laying crooked out of shape, the skin red-slicked and jagged-edged around an ugly gash. “You’re going to be fine.” He patted his brother’s chest, high up near the shoulder. “You’re just going to have to stay here for a bit.”

“I can do it,” Dean insisted, trying to push himself up. As he swung his good leg off the grave, it shifted the broken one, causing Dean to cry out. He bit the sound off, but Sam could still hear how agonised it was. Glancing around swiftly, Sam mentally crossed his fingers that the ghost hadn’t heard them, wasn’t drawn to Dean by the suffering he was experiencing. Broken bones were bad enough, but ones as bent out of shape as this was? Dean was lucky his bone wasn’t poking through his skin. Sam had suffered one like this when he was a teenager, and it had been excruciating. “Just give me my shovel.”

“Dean, trust me,” Sam helped sit him up, tensing at every muffled groan his brother let slip. Getting him into position with his back leaning against the gravestone that had wounded him so, Sam placed his sawed-off into Dean’s hands. “You’re not going anywhere. I know where the grave is. I’ll finish this.”

“Sam, no,” Dean argued, fingers curling into the bottom of Sam’s shirt and preventing him from moving away. “You can’t go without a weapon. Take this.”

“Dean, you can’t walk right now,” Sam replied, pushing the shotgun back into Dean’s lap. “You need it more than I do. I have the salt.”

Reaching into Dean’s pocket, he nabbed the salt cannister Dean had used earlier and sent a reassuring nod his brother’s way. In the moonlight, Dean looked sallow. Blood was soaking his pant-leg, but it wasn’t something Sam could deal with right then. Sending one last tight smile Dean’s way, Sam jogged off into the cemetery.

Leaving Dean with such a damaged leg in the way of a ghost wasn’t on the top of Sam’s list of things to do, but it was necessary. It had been a difficult decision to make, and if Sam could have his way, he and Dean would be leaving that graveyard for the hospital that very minute, but he didn’t have a choice. The ghost had killed someone every night since it had been disturbed by careless cemetery visitors; if Sam didn’t get rid of it that night, another person would die. He couldn’t have that stain on his conscience, and he knew that Dean couldn’t, either. For all that his brother played at being careless, Sam knew deaths he let happen weighed heavily on his soul.

Shaking his foreboding at leaving Dean behind, Sam hefted his shovel in one hand, tucking the salt cannister into his pocket as he ran. Patting his back-pocket, relief letting his breaths come a little easier at the feel of the lighter there, Sam continued on.

Worry was gripping him tight in its claws, it’s cold grip chilling him. He had lied to Dean earlier; he didn’t remember where the grave was. Cursing himself for not memorising his own directions better, Sam slowed to a jog. The cemetery was big, so much so that he couldn’t see the boundaries of it from where he was. There were so many possible paths to take, so many potential places for the gravesite to be, and Sam just didn’t know. Closing his eyes, he mentally kicked himself for his ineptitude.

Eyes closed, Sam told himself he would just pick a path and run. Ready to do just that, he opened his eyes. He blinked.

He blinked again.

Turning to check the other paths, he frowned, then turned back to the one on his direct right. It was darker than the rest, far darker. As he edged closer to it, walking now, not jogging, he felt his hairs stand to attention, feeling like needles poking his skin. It was worse than the sensation had been earlier. What’s more, this path was _cold_. He could feel the icy mists of it swirling around him, blackened and foggy. Something told Sam that this was the right path, but he didn’t know why. He’d never seen a ghost do _this_ before.

With a hurried shrug, Sam took a deep breath and then threw himself into the swirling darkness. As he ran, he realised he could see through the darkness, eyes fixing briefly on tombstones appearing out of the mist, before sinking back into the roiling black fog. It was almost like running through a giant demon, though instead of maliciousness and dark glee, the fog made Sam feel despair, flinty shards of hatred slicing through it into clarity. Clarity that felt like revenge.

Continuing down the path at speed, Sam used gravestones as pivot-points. Fingers scraping on the rough stones, he swung himself around them. Blood was starting to wet his finger-tips, the sting of the grazes burning on his finger-pads. Knowing he wouldn’t be able to keep the speed up for much longer, nor use his free hand to help him, Sam heaved a broken sigh of relief when he came to the end of the swirling black.

As he stepped out of it, dark tendrils caressing his cheeks like a lover, tempting him back into the hazy confusion of the fog, he found himself staring down at a grave.

_Victor E. Hunter_. This was it.

“Got you,” Sam grinned as his eyes alighted on the fading words, moss and the wear of time wiping the man from history. “Time to end this.”

Swinging his shovel into both hands, Sam wedged it into the crumbly ground. The quicker this was over with, the better.

The second his shovel made contact with the ground, Sam heard an outraged scream. It was just as otherworldly and haunting as it had been when it had echoed around the cemetery before, but this time it was closer, right behind him. Attempting to spin, both grateful and annoyed that he’d left the shotgun with Dean, he wedged his ruby-slick fingers into his pocket, hissing as grains of salt rubbed into his shallowly sliced fingertips.

Before he could unearth the cannister, he was shoved backwards by bitingly cold hands. It felt like daggers were being buried in his shoulders, nails digging deep into his flesh through his flannel as he was pressed backwards. Almost-physical limbs threw him backwards, flattened him against the gravestone with back-breaking pressure. This was wrong. This wasn’t how ghosts were meant to be. They could throw people around, use powers, even kill, but they couldn’t _touch_ people, couldn’t hold them in place with their own physical strength. What _was_ this?

Teeth grinding, Sam tried to push back against the apparition, shovel dropped in favour of wrapping his fingers around the chilling wrists. Burningly cold skin was rock-solid under his palms, unmoveable as a mountain. There was no hope he could move this creature, no hope that he could get it to stop pushing. His breath was starting to come in stuttered gasps, already hindered from the high-speed run he’d taken to get here.

With another ghostly scream, the figure opened its mouth, revealing rotting teeth. They were just as translucent as the rest of it, but Sam knew if those teeth bit into him, they’d leave a red-raw crescent in his skin. It would probably get infected too. He tried to shove himself backwards, further into the crumbly stone of the grave.

A grin curled Victor’s lips up into a rictus grimace, something powerful sparking in his eyes. With that spark, Sam felt a great pressure building up around them, pressing down against him. It forced him backwards, his ass scraping just a little bit further along the ground with a scratching sound, leaving him pressed up against the tombstone with no space between him and it. Plastered to the stone, he fought to breathe, barely able to expand his chest against the pressure.

Within him, he felt another pressure building up. Whether it was dread at his impending death – and he _was_ going to die here, if something didn’t change and _soon_ – or the lack of oxygen he was receiving, his insides felt like they were going to burst out of him. Images of his body exploding from the pressure exerted on it, leaving splattered gore and entrails everywhere and an empty husk for Dean to find wormed it’s way into his mind. Dread bit deep into him.

Determined not to let Dean find him that way, determined that he wouldn’t leave Dean to clean up his mangled corpse, Sam tried to fight back against the ghost’s force. He pushed and heaved and let out what little breath he did have in a strangled yell, more a hoarse whisper than any sort of shout. Above him, Victor’s spirit grinned sadistically.

It was that that gave him the last push he needed. Somehow, Sam felt himself break through the ghost’s powers, feeling the reverberations as his own strength broke through Victor’s otherworldly ones. Whatever he had done, using only his own strength, Sam had managed to break Victor’s powers, enough so that they exploded outwards. No longer feeling any pressure within him, Sam watched in fasciation as the explosion happened with him right at the centre.

Victor began burning, straddling Sam still. Scrambling to get out from under him, Sam pulled himself up on the gravestone and tumbled around it, putting some distance between himself and the fiery destruction of a serial killer turned ghost. Eye wide and breath heaving, Sam ignored the empty sensation within himself and sank down to his knees, telling himself what he was feeling was just the loss of adrenaline. He was fine. He had somehow managed to break Victor’s hold, and that had killed the ghost. He didn’t know how, would have to research it later, but for now that was fine.

Just to make sure, Sam knew he was going to have to dig up Victor’s grave. He knew what he would see when he did so, but Dean wouldn’t be happy until he checked. Neither would he, for that matter.

Still catching his breath, Sam picked up the shovel, breathing in sharply at the sting of his abused fingers, and set to work. The sooner he got this done, the sooner he could have Dean in a hospital, the sooner he could stop worrying about his brother and focus on whatever the Hell had happened here tonight, because honestly? Sam had never seen anything like it, but whatever it was, he was sure it wasn’t good.


	5. Senses Grow Sharper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam goes into town for a break from researching, only to discover a monster there. When he gets back to the Bunker, there's something else, something worse there. But it has some interesting information that it thinks Sam ought to know.

Senses Grow Sharper

Sam blinked the sleep out of his eyes as he wandered casually down the street in Lebanon. He’d been up all night researching what had happened a few weeks ago, and had come to no conclusions yet. Nothing seemed to know what had happened, no books containing a creature quite like what Sam had faced. All he’d found was a book claiming that some psychics and mediums could interact with ghosts as if they had solid, physical forms. It would have explained the situation, if it weren’t for the fact that Sam wasn’t a psychic. At least, not any more.

Eventually, he had slammed the book he was reading from closed with more force than had been strictly necessary. Dean, who had been flicking lazily through a skin mag with his cast propped up on a chair before him, had jumped, giving Sam a dirty look when their eyes met. With a groan, Sam had run his hands through his hair, then stood abruptly, hurrying out of the room with a hurried explanation that he was going into Lebanon to do some shopping. They needed some new supplies anyway, having run through a lot as Dean healed.

The last thing Sam had seen as he’d hurried out of the room was Dean using his rolled up magazine to try and hook the book closer to him, probably intent on finding out what had upset Sam. Fondness for his brother curled his lips into a smile, but he schooled his expression back into a casually blank one. He didn’t want to look like a psychopath. At least, not where he and Dean lived.

Shopping in hand, Sam was heading back towards the Impala, parked neatly by the kerb of the road. Dean always complained about Sam’s driving, but Sam figured it was because Sam was a _good_ driver, not a crazy one. Dean’s style of driving was all about speed, showing off, enjoying himself. Sam just stuck to the rules; there was no sense in getting pulled over because he wanted to have a bit of fun. Besides, Sam had never liked driving quite the same way Dean did.

Opening the trunk, Sam placed the shopping inside, making sure to place it around the edges of the false bottom, leaving the weapons easy access if it was necessary. He fingered the hidden latch, running his thumb over the metal of it slowly, feeling the heat of the metal bite into his thumb pad. It really was a sweltering day. He tugged at his shirt, trying to persuade some cool air down the front of it.

Just as he was giving up on that endeavour, a body crashed into him. Hard.

Reflexes acting quicker than his mind could, Sam had the person in a tight grip, shoved against the side of the Impala within seconds. It took a moment for his mind to catch up with his actions, breaths coming a little faster in his chest, more from the surprise than any actual exertion on his part.

Startled grey eyes looked up into his, wide and unsure. Worry was furrowing a blond brow, creamy skin paling further as their face blanched. Cautiously, Sam began to relax his grip, offering an apologetic smile. He had almost let the smaller man go completely when he blinked, a flicker shivering through him, and everything changed.

The man’s eyes were still grey, but more animalistic. Something in the face shifted from human and scared to beastly and cornered, ready to pounce at the rising threat. Sam could _feel_ the coiling of the muscles, could feel the readiness to attack, could read it on the strangely warped face in front of him and his grip tightened, fingers gripping the collar of the man’s – monster’s? – shirt so tightly they went bloodless-white.

“What are you?” he snarled, gritting his words out through clenched teeth. His eyes darted around, checking nobody else was on the street. To his relief, they were alone. They wouldn’t be for long, he knew. He’d have to clean this up quickly. “What do you want?”

“What do _I_ want?” there was an undercurrent to the voice, something more rumbling than just deep, more growling than just angry. “You’re the one who’s got me pressed against your car, Genius.”

“I know you’re not human,” Sam hissed, narrowing his eyes at the creature. He pulled them away from the car and slammed them back against it, warning them against any funny business. The creature’s hands came up to grip his wrists, nails sharpening into points, pressing a gentle threat against Sam’s veins. “What are you?”

“What’s it to you?” the creature sneered, jagged teeth visible in its bared open mouth. “What could you do to me, huh?”

“What do you think?” Sam’s voice was flat, an eyebrow raised as he leaned more of his weight against the creature, pushing him backwards into the Impala. If Dean knew Sam was treating his car this way, he’d be furious. Luckily, he was resting at home in the Bunker, leg elevated to help it heal. “Hunt you.”

“Hunt me?” incredulous, the creature stopped moving, its grip loosening around Sam’s wrists. “Why would you hunt me?”

“Because I’m a hunter?” Sam asked, confused. Why did it _think_ he was going to hunt it? What, was it a new sporting event? A hobby for the truly insane? “It’s what I do.”

“ _You’re_ a hunter?” Eyebrows rose, bewilderment alighting on the creature’s face. “But… You can see what I am.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed slowly, narrowing his eyes at the creature. “Because your face is very… not human.”

“It isn’t,” the creature let go of Sam’s wrists entirely, holding his hands out to the side openly, imploring Sam to understand its explanation. Carefully, Sam loosed his hold on the creature, then slipped his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a knife. The leather-bound handle was supple in his grip, moulded perfectly to his fingers after years of usage. He held it loosely but ready, in perfect view of the creature. Grey eyes fixed on the wicked blade, the thing making no attempt to move from the Impala’s door. “I mean, I’m definitely in human form right now, dude. If you can see otherwise, _you’re_ the one who has a problem, not me.”

“You’re in human form?” Sam asked, eyebrows raising. Eyes flickering over the creature once again, checking for any way to tell if the creature was lying to him or not, Sam took a half step back. “I don’t believe you.”

“You want proof?” the creature lowered its voice, eyes darting from side to side. The street they were on was still quiet, nothing moving save for some old dead leaves that hadn’t rotted from last autumn. They scraped down the street in small whirlwinds, whipping up high and dropping down low as they travelled. A coke can rattled down the street with them, the tinny echo loud. No footsteps could be heard, no shadows moving towards them. They were alone. For now. “Here’s proof.”

As Sam watched, the animalistic shadow the creature had sharpened and grew, developing further and further until it wasn’t just a hint Sam could see under the surface, but a form as clear as day right before him. The animalistic grey eyes were now shining reflective and yellow, the teeth jagged and ragged, bursting from a mouth too small to house them fully. Claw-tipped fingers were still raised in surrender, blackened and thicker than a human nail.

“Werewolf,” Sam breathed out, taking another half-step back as the man nodded. “Able to control it?”

“Yeah,” due to the jagged teeth, the man’s voice was muffled. Small specks of spittle flew towards Sam, hitting him on the cheek. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, reaching his free hand up to rub the saliva off. “Sorry.”

“What are you _doing_ here?” he hissed at the creature, craning his head around once again. They couldn’t be too careful; it wouldn’t do for the people of Lebanon to start freaking out due to a monster sighting. “You better not be hunting people from here.” He paused, reconsidered. “You better not be hunting people from anywhere.”

The wolf was shrinking back into itself, the solidified form becoming a shadow just under the surface once again.

“Don’t worry,” the creature’s voice was soothing, features sincere. “I’ve lived here for years. I hunt animals, out in the country around here.”

“You’re lying,” Sam decided, blade still raised. He didn’t trust this creature, not yet, but if proof could be given… Well, Sam and Dean were good friends with Garth, weren’t they? And Lenore had proved herself, before Eve had got out. “I’ve not seen you around before.”

“Dude, I don’t know why, but you’re seeing me with ‘monster-vision’, or whatever you want to call it,” with still raised hands, the man shrugged. “Try looking at me without it.”

Sam squinted at the werewolf, cocking his head to the side. Hazel eyes danced over the wolf, trying to strip away the shadow, wash away the animal spirit Sam could still see hanging over his form. It was difficult, too difficult. Sam slumped his shoulders in defeat.

“I don’t know how,” he admitted, hating it even as he said it.

“Try pulling the shutter up?” the wolf suggested, sympathy contorting his features into a softer mask. “I don’t really know how. I’ve not gone without it in years.”

Listening to the creature’s advice, Sam tried to pull a shutter up, tried closing his eyes and lifting the vision up with his eyelids, sliding this shadowy world away with the darkness before his eyes. It didn’t work. Instead, Sam ended up staring at the wolf for entirely too long, enough that he was starting to shift awkwardly against the burning hot metal of the Impala, leaving stark black marks in the dust coating the metal, the grime wiping off onto his t-shirt. Dean would definitely know Sam shoved someone against the Impala now.

Finally, something shifted. Sam could still see the shadowy world behind the solid one, but it was like it had switched focus. The traces of the supernatural that Sam had seen boldly before were now pushed to the side, the normal world the starker one. If Sam wanted to, he could shift his focus into the monster world and then back again. He did it a few times, just to teach himself how. When he shoved the darker world to the background once again, he could still make out the animalistic side to the man before him, but his human facial features were much more distinct.

Spiky blond hair stuck up in all directions, held stiffly in place with too much gel. It was almost as bad as an old nineties hair style. Sam winced internally. The grey eyes were dark and flat, perfectly ordinary looking. Even the snarl was a normal human one, though as Sam continued to focus on it, the monstrous teeth tickled at the edges of his vision once again, begging for him to pay attention to them.

What was most important, though, was that now Sam could properly see the human face of the monster, he had to admit that the creature was telling the truth. Sam _had_ seen him around town before, had seen him ever since he and Dean had moved into the Bunker. Not once had he and Dean come across a death in the town that suggested werewolf.

“I do know you,” Sam admitted, lowering his blade. The wolf slumped at that, relief turning his muscles to jelly. “Sorry.”

“Hey, no worries, man,” the man grinned, crooked and forgiving. He extended his hand, Sam noting that with the supernatural vision tucked away, his fingers were rounded just like any other person’s. Sam switched the hand his silver knife was in, catching the other man’s hand in a firm shake. His skin was warm, soft against Sam’s own callused palm. He _felt_ just as human as he currently looked. “I’m Louis Hawkins.”

“Sam,” Sam offered, distracted now he had established that the werewolf probably wasn’t going to be causing any trouble. “Look, I need to go…”

He had to talk to Dean about this, about what he was seeing, because it wasn’t normal. Maybe Dean would have some idea what was going on, would be able to tell him if it was a curse or not, because if it wasn’t… What did that even _mean_? Was Sam a monster now? Had something happened to him? Shaking his head, Sam stepped away from Louis and around to the trunk, fingers curling into the scorching metal in order to slam it closed with a thunk. Louis watched him intently.

Rounding to the driver’s seat, Sam opened the door and slid in. Louis watched him the whole time, then shrugged seemingly to himself and began to walk off. Winding down the window, cursing under his breath at the stiffness of the mechanism, Sam called out to the other man.

“Hey, Louis?” the werewolf stopped, turned. A bushy blond eyebrow was raised, but the man made no sound. “You stay on the wagon, or Dean and I’ll be at your door, okay?”

“Dean and—” Louis muttered to himself, pursing his lips. His eyes were narrowed, head cocked as if he were reaching deep into his memory for something. “Winchesters,” he confirmed to himself, so quietly Sam figured he probably wasn’t supposed to hear. Raising his voice, he assured Sam, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

With a final nod, Sam put the car into gear, rolling the window up as he went. It was a little tricky, what with him being quite large in a fairly small car, but he managed it. Checking out his rear view mirror one last time, watching as Louis stared after his car, Sam drove out of town, back towards the Bunker. He passed people as he went, all of them seeming normal, with nothing hidden under the surface, save for one. They had a bright kernel in them, a spark of _something_ burning in their chest that Sam knew well. A psychic, he was sure.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, taking a deep breath that smelt of old leather and a faint hint of soap suds, Sam roared out of town, heading back to the Bunker to share his worries with Dean.

………………………………….

Letting himself back into the Bunker, Sam paused briefly and blinked around. The entrance was ever so slightly different, the warding bright and obvious in the gloom. While there was nothing there that was particularly repellent to Sam, he could see why creatures would have been warded away by them. Something sickly about them niggled at his mind. He felt like he was inside a cage when looking at them, like he was turning a key on the lock through the bars, shutting himself inside to protect himself, despite knowing that everything he needed protection from was outside the cage, just waiting until he left it again.

Swallowing, Sam turned away from the burning bright lines of the warding he could see and into the map room, hurrying down the stairs with the gentle tap of soft steps on metal grating. At the bottom, Sam looked around for Dean. The chair he’d had his leg resting on was still left askew, pushed out from the table. The book Sam had been studying was left closed before Dean’s seat. Briefly, Sam wondered whether Dean had actually read it. He quickly forgot the thought when he heard something calling out to him.

Something screeching and staticky was calling his name, the voice almost like it had been put through some sort of modulator and then played through an old speaker. It hurt Sam’s head to listen to, his eardrums ringing as if they would burst. Reminded of Lucifer and Michael’s true voices from his time in the Cage, Sam felt himself begin to shake. He was a rabbit in headlights, glued to the spot as his doom hurtled closer and closer.

“Sam,” it wailed again, emanating from around the corner. Slowly, terror locking his muscles stiff as a statue, Sam twisted his torso to face the direction it was coming from, feet still facing the opposite direction. If he needed to run, his legs were already in position. “Sam, you’re back.”

A burning white light was shining in the corridor that headed towards the kitchen, so blazingly brilliant it seared Sam’s eyes, caused them to water. Tears fell down his cheeks as he blinked furiously at it, breath caught in his throat. As it drew nearer, it almost seemed to pause where it was, the light pulsing with what Sam’s senses registered as shock, before it rushed towards him. Finally letting his feet snap around so his body was facing the luminous aura, Sam raised his arms over his head and crouched down, hoping the burn as it killed him would only last seconds.

The light stopped before him, flickering in puzzlement.

It stayed where it was, studying him for a moment, and then seemed to die down just a little. From behind his raised arms, Sam blinked. He blinked again, clearing the layer of tears from his eyes, then raised his head slightly. What he saw nearly made him scream.

The radiance was no longer just a light, but now some sort of shifting creature, something made of loops and whirls, ever changing, ever different. Hundreds of eyes peered at Sam, all studying him with concern. They blinked in unison, vanishing and reappearing again into the light of the creature’s body. It was enough to terrify Sam to his core, enough to have him flashing back to the Cage, to the enormous creatures that fought above him, stepped on him, shrank themselves down to his size to torture him. The only differences was, instead of six ever-moving wings, this creature only had two ragged ones, hardly whole or healthy enough to call wings at all.

“Sam?” the terrible voice asked again. Concern was streaked and stretched throughout the scream and crackle, but Sam couldn’t contain his fear. He fell backwards, arms rising over his head again as he cried out, begging the creature to stay back. Eyes squeezed shut tight, trying to stop the burning of this vision, Sam scrambled back, fingernails catching on the stone floors as he clawed himself away. “Sam, what is wrong?”

Shaking his head desperately, Sam slammed his eyes shut and wished that the creature would go away, shouting the words silently in his head. The incandescence stopped approaching, the tingling sound of it pausing a few feet away from Sam. Keeping his eyes closed, he turned his face towards it, petrified and curious in equal measure.

“I see the problem,” the light screeched, causing Sam to screw his face up and slam his hands over his ears. He curled into a ball where he sat, knees pressed tight against his chest. Distantly, he was aware he was muttering ‘go away’ over and over again under his breath, though it did him no good. The writhing mass of shapes and eyes wasn’t going anywhere. “Your powers have come back.”

Drawing closer again, the tingling paused next to Sam. He felt it wash over his body, bathing him in silky light. This radiance wasn’t like Lucifer’s, as cold as the very depths of space, nor was it like Michael’s, as hot as the centre of the sun. It was soothing, silky, and when it washed over Sam it gave him a sense of peace. Muscles relaxing, his body unfurling from its defensive ball, Sam opened his eyes. The sun in the Bunker was gone, leaving only Castiel in its place.

“Cas?” he asked, voice trembling and hoarse. He blinked, looking around in a panic, before focusing back on the angel. “What happened?”

“You saw a fraction of my true form,” Castiel explained, crouching down in front of Sam. Deep blue eyes flickered between Sam’s own, the angel appearing to be looking into Sam’s very soul. After a few moments of scrutiny, Cas sighed, nodding to himself. “Your powers have come back.”

“What?” Sam’s voice was flat, devoid of emotion.

“Your psychic powers, they were reawakened during the Trials.” Castiel sat himself down cross-legged on the floor, like a child would sit. His coat splayed out around him, rumpled and frayed-edged. Castiel would have to re-hem it later, Sam noted distantly. “You have not felt safe enough to use them until now.”

“I’m not psychic, Cas!” Sam exclaimed, hands coming up to run through his hair. Tugging on the strands a little, Sam tried to contain his panic. It was difficult, as he was still shaking from seeing Castiel’s true form just moments beforehand. His breaths were still coming too quickly, his pulse still beating heavily in his wrists, his throat, his temple. “I’m… That power is gone. I can’t be psychic.”

“You are psychic,” Cas said it simply, as if it _were_ that simple. It wasn’t, and Sam knew it. What was he going to do? What would Dean think? Oh, God, but this situation was terrible. Dean was going to think he was back on the blood, was going to call him a monster, would finally get around to hunting him. And just when they had got back into a better place, too! “It is not bad, Sam.”

“Not bad?!” Sam cried, throwing his arms out wide. Still sitting splayed-legged on the floor, he must have looked ridiculous, but in that moment he didn’t care. “ _Not bad_?! It’s demonic, Cas. I know you had that thing for Meg a while ago, but—” he cut himself off at Castiel’s flinch, pressing the heels of his hands to his eye sockets and groaning softly. “I’m sorry, Castiel. You didn’t deserve that.”

“I did not,” Castiel agreed, waving a hand to dismiss it. “But it does not matter.” He cocked his head in his bird-like way, face still as unreadable as ever. A few seconds of silence passed, before Castiel spoke up again. “You are aware that your powers are not inherently demonic, aren’t you?”

“What?” Sam furrowed his eyebrows at Cas, confusion clouding his mind. Everything was addled, from the extreme fear he had been feeling, the adrenaline that was still making him jittery, to the facts Castiel were spilling that were entirely shifting his world view. “Not demonic? Cas, in case you don’t remember, I’m the ‘Boy with the Demon Blood’, the ‘Abomination’. My powers were given to be my Azazel, when he bled into my mouth when I was a baby.”

“No,” Castiel disagreed. His voice was firm, holding no possibility of debate. “Azazel chose you as his favourite because you already had powers. The Campbell family line has always had psychics. I am surprised you do not know this.”

“Yeah, well,” Sam shrugged, mind whirling at the information he had been given. “I don’t know all that much about my mom, I guess.”

Shifting on the hard stone floor, the cool of it sinking in to his legs, Sam tried to digest what he had been told. It was a challenging task. Learning he had always had powers, that the powers he’d had were his _own_ , corrupted by Azazel? That was something else. That didn’t make it any better, though. What he’d done with them through the years would mean Dean would see him as monstrous, would try to kill him still.

Silence passed between the angel and the psychic, comfortable and without accusation. Sam was still calming down, the deep breaths he was drawing smelling of coffee and books, the library barely any distance away at all. Jitters were still wracking his muscles irregularly, but they were slowing down. His body wasn’t screaming for him to get up and run anymore, though his mind was still whirling, still trying to process what he’d been told. He wasn’t inherently bad.

“You were purified in the Trials,” Castiel said, as if he were commenting on the weather. Sam jumped violently. “Your powers are yours alone now, Sam.”

“I don’t—” Sam didn’t know what to say. What was Castiel saying, that there was no demon blood in him anymore? Had he been right? He was clean? He didn’t feel clean, would probably never feel clean, but this… this would go a long way to helping, wouldn’t it? So many questions, so much that needed considering, but if what Cas said was true… God, Sam hoped with his whole heart that it was. “Thanks, Cas.”

“You are welcome, Sam,” Cas dipped his head graciously. He made no move to get off the floor, so Sam stayed where he was as well. In the position he was sitting, his bones were starting to dig into the floor. Letting his legs fall forward, he copied Cas’ criss-cross position, struggling a little to get his long legs under control.

Something occurred to Sam.

“You can’t tell Dean,” his voice wavered where he had hoped it would be strong. “Please, Cas.”

“This is not the sort of thing you ought to hide from your brother,” Castiel warned, concern colouring his voice. “He may not react well if he doesn’t hear about it from you.”

“He won’t react well if he does,” Sam snorted. When Cas raised an eyebrow at that, Sam turned his face towards his lap, curtaining himself off from the angel with his hair. “Sorry, it’s just…” He gave a slow sigh, leaning his head back as he did so. Brown strands tickled his face, making him want to sneeze. He repressed it. “I’ll tell him, Cas. I will. Just… let me do it in my own time. In my own way.”

Castiel levelled a long stare at Sam, but eventually dipped his chin into a nod, conceding to Sam’s request. “If that is what you wish,” he promised, before rising to his feet in one smooth move. He reached down a hand to Sam. Taking it, callused fingers sliding against Castiel’s own soft ones, Sam allowed Cas to pull him to his feet. His rising was much slower, a groan escaping him. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. “I will let you tell Dean yourself.”

“Tell me what?” Dean asked cheerfully. He had his crutches under both arms, leaning heavily against them. His casted leg was held out in front of him at an awkward angle. “Something I ought to know, Sammy?”

“Nope,” Sam assured, sending a strained closed-lip smile Dean’s way. “Cas and I were just talking about…” he paused, searching for something that would seem plausible to his brother, who was always good at spotting a lie. “About the last ghost hunt. If that’s what it was.”

Dean eyed Sam suspiciously, green eyes narrowing slightly, before letting it go. He shrugged awkwardly, almost toppling over when it jerked his crutches too much, leaving Sam and Cas to hurry to his side to support him. Together, they manoeuvred him into a chair, him complaining the whole way, even as he raised his leg into the still askew chair himself.

“Well, keep at it, guys,” Dean beamed at them, his face a little shuttered. It almost looked to Sam like he was hiding hurt, though Sam didn’t know why. Maybe it was the pain of the broken leg? That had to be it. “’Cause that was a weird one.”

“It was indeed,” Cas allowed, pulling out another chair so he could sit down. There was something about the way he sat that was still stiff and awkward to this day, despite the many years he’d spent around humans. “Are you not going to sit down, Sam?”

“No,” Sam shook his head, tucking his hair behind his ear. He was restless, wanting to get out of the room and truly think things through, fully, completely. “No, I’m going to get Dean some painkillers.” He directed his gaze to Dean this time, sending a soft smile his brother’s way. “You look like you could use one.”

“That I do, Sammy,” Dean agreed, waving him off with a lazy arm. “And bring back some beer, too. Bitch.”

“Jerk,” Sam shot back with a grin. Inside, he was still a mess of emotions, turmoil curling in his gut. The guilt of not telling Dean immediately now that he knew was eating at him, boring a hole through his chest, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it, not yet. He had to know how his brother would react, first. “I’ll be right back.”

With that, Sam hurried off towards the kitchen, shoving his worries and emotions down as he went. There wasn’t time to think about his powers, not yet. He had to keep up his charade of perfectly okay for Dean, to fool Dean until the time was right. How he hated doing that, but how necessary it was right then. Steeling himself, Sam carried on forwards, knowing that, when the time was right, he would tell his brother everything.


	6. Use Them for Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam and Dean are on the trail of a hunter gone mad. He's hunting psychics down. But that isn't the problem for Sam. The hunter wants Sam to suffer, and that means killing Dean. Sam is left in a difficult position, one which will force him to reveal his powers at last. But how will Dean react?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys. Thank you so much for reading this fic, and sticking with it until the end. I know I've updated at weird times, but it's finally here. The last chapter. I might create a second fic, loosely linked with this, about Sam and Cas' relationship, largely to do with Sam quoting Castiel in the previous chapter. At the moment it's in the early planning stages, but I hope that may interest some of you. 
> 
> Anyway, a huge thank you to all of those who commented! I hope this last chapter manages to complete the story for you, without anything seeming wildly out of character or anti-climatic. Enjoy! :)

Plus One

Sam bit back his cry of dismay as Dexter Graham, a hunter gone off the deep end, shifted his gun from him to Dean. Across the room from Sam, Dean threw up his hands, his own gun pointing into the air. Sam’s was still levelled on Dexter, but there was _no way_ he was going to shoot it, not now. Not if his brother could be potentially shot by an insane man. He bit back a growl of frustration. This wasn’t what they needed.

When Missouri had called Dean, it was the first Sam had heard of her since the Apocalypse. He used to keep in touch with her back then, when his powers were still bothering him. He’d been debating phoning her again, asking her for help now they’d re-emerged, more confusing than ever, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. Missouri had seen how far he’d fallen back then, and he hadn’t even phoned her to tell her he was back from the Cage, for fear of her being disappointed in him.

Dean had taken Missouri’s phone call, readily agreeing to go out and see her when he learned that psychic friends of hers – good people, according to her – were all kicking the bucket, violently. Dean had sworn they’d get on it, sitting next to Sam in the war room, and Missouri had been surprised, asking who Dean was working with. Upon learning Sam was back, she’d been truly shocked, but the tinny voice on the other side of the phone didn’t sound disappointed, just upset that Sam hadn’t told her about it. Guilt had run through him, but he knew he could make it up to her by helping on the case. When Dean had suggested they go, Sam had practically leaped at the chance.

Meeting with Missouri had been bizarre. She’d stormed out of her house and smacked Sam on the arm, hard. He’d clutched his bicep, squinting through bewildered eyes at Missouri as he complained. In response, she had dragged him into a hug. In his ear, she’d whispered about how she knew his powers were back, and that she’d do anything she could to help. Dean was left standing behind Sam, waiting for his turn to greet Missouri. Much to Sam’s amusement, he’d gotten the same treatment from the woman. Dean had looked even more put-out than Sam had felt.

With that done, she’d taken them both inside and explained the situation. It didn’t take long for Sam and Dean to find out that a hunter had gone off the rails, claiming _all_ psychics ought to die, not just the evil ones. Together, Sam, Dean and Missouri had hunted him down and smoked him out, hoping that they could stop him quickly. It hadn’t been that easy, and Missouri had ended up in the hospital, Sam cursing the fact that he hadn’t been able to use his powers to save her.

The gun Dexter was using had been warded against psychic powers somehow – Sam was going to have to look into that – and Sam hadn’t been able to stop it. He’d thrown his hand up to try, Dean sending him a weird look. He’d managed to shrug it off after the hunt because his powers didn’t work, but he’d learned something valuable: he couldn’t stop the gun from firing.

It was a few days later, and Sam and Dean had the gun switching between them, leaving them helpless to act. It was the very same gun Dexter had used before. Sam would recognise it anywhere, the sides of the gun carved with sigils of some sort, the bullet dug out of Missouri covered with those same sigils. Sam was willing to bet that the other psychics killed had been shot with the same gun, unable to protect themselves because of it. Fear shot through his system, knowing that whatever he did, it couldn’t be with his powers. Dean was practically a dead man walking, more so than usual.

Gulping down his panic, Sam raised his own hands, flicking the safety onto the gun.

“Dexter,” he began, jolting a little when the gun spun back to him. Across the room, Dean stopped moving. If there was one thing that stopped Dean from fighting a madman with a gun, it was Sam being under immediate threat. _In fact_ , Sam mused in the back of his mind, _that’s the_ only _thing that stops Dean from fighting a madman with a gun, come to think of it_. “Put the gun down,” his voice was soothing, hopeful. “We can talk about this.”

“There’s no talking about this,” Dexter shook his head, gun switching quickly between Sam and Dean. The wild way Dexter was moving his weapon around made Sam nervous; anyone could be hit, at any time. “Psychics deserve to die. You _know_ they do!”

He’d sent his last sentence to Dean, imploring eyes fixed on Sam’s brother. Sam bit his lip, worrying at it. He didn’t want to hear Dean’s response to that, didn’t want to know what his brother thought about psychics. It was part of the reason he hadn’t told Dean about his own powers coming back yet. Dean didn’t like psychics, had very few exceptions to that rule, and Sam had never been an exception before. There wasn’t much hope that he would be this time around.

Across the room, Dean still had his hands raised up. Both brothers were inching towards each other, moving so infinitesimally slowly that Dexter wouldn’t notice.

“I don’t know,” Dean mused, eyes flickering briefly across the room to meet Sam’s, the green bright with consideration. He didn’t take his eyes off of Dexter for long, though. Sam didn’t either, Dexter being a psychopath with a gun. Shadows moved across Dean’s face as he said, “Some of them are pretty great.”

“No, they’re not,” Dexter shook his head, gun trembling in his hand. A sheen was building in his black-brown eyes, ruddy skin turning even redder as he spoke. “One killed my daughter. They _all_ deserve to die for that. They’ll pay! I’ll make them _all_ pay!”

“No offence, Dude,” Dean’s voice was hard, not playing games. “But don’t you think _you_ played a part in that?” 

“Dean—” Sam hissed, cut off by his brother almost instantly.

“I mean, you raised her in the life,” Dean shrugged, hands beginning to tremble. Sam knew the feeling. His own arms were aching badly, raised into an uncomfortable position for too long. His gun hand was beginning to shake, the weight of the weapon straining his muscles just a little more on that side. “She was bound to die at some point. Hunting isn’t exactly a long career choice, is it?”

“ _You’re_ here,” Dexter spat, flecks of spittle landing on Sam’s cheek. Grimacing, Sam resisted the urge to wipe it off. He’d been covered in worse things, after all. “Winchesters.” He spat again, shaking his head. His eyes flickered to Sam, studying him critically. Sam risked a glance out of the corner of his eye, meeting Dean’s from a few metres away. “Everyone knows your daddy raised you in the life.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, sliding his foot over the carpet just a little more. The closer he was to Dean, the easier it would be to jump in front of the bullet, save him. What else could he do? There was no way he could use his powers, and Sam knew he _would_ use his powers if it would save Dean, and damn the consequences, too. “But we didn’t make it out alive.”

Dexter peered at them incredulously. Sam knew his sentence hadn’t made much sense to the crazed hunter, seeing as they were standing there in front of him, alive and mostly well (Dean had a split lip from a bar fight a few nights previously, and he was still limping just a little), but surely the man had heard the stories? The way he was looking at Sam told him that he’d definitely heard _those_ stories, the ones knocking around from before he’d taken the swan dive into the Pit – he bit back a shudder at that, pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind like he always did – the ones to do with Azazel and his army of psychics.

Sam rolled his shoulders, hands still raised. Dexter only shifted the gun again, training it back on Dean.

“Doesn’t matter,” the man shook his head, watching Sam with monstrous interest. “Because I know what you are.”

Gritting his teeth, Sam shifted his chin from side to side, eyes widening as Dexter resettled his grip around the handle of his weapon.

“I know what you can’t do,” Dexter’s lips were stretching upwards in an awful parody of a smile, yellowed teeth glinting dully. “Not with this gun,” he continued, gesturing to the silvery metal with his forehead. “And I know how you’ll react when you lose your brother. Everybody does. You’re predictable, Winchester.”

With that, Dexter let out a gruesome chuckle as he squeezed the trigger, the bang of the gun echoing in Sam’s ears as he let out a scream. Within him, he could feel his power bubbling up quickly, flowing into him like a river through a broken dam, sweeping the remains of the barrier away. A crackling, crunching power flooded into his limbs, pressure building in his fingers and toes, hair standing on end as he filled and filled and filled.

It felt like a lifetime. It took less than a second.

Boyed and filled with power, Sam used tendrils of it to stretch out towards his brother. There was a bond between them, something solid and unbreakable that helped facilitate the action. Vines of ice and fire mixed together, curled around their bond and wrapped around Dean like an embrace. It happened faster than Sam could think about, faster than anyone could watch. It was a reflex, pure and simple, and when it was done his powers were drawing back, jerking Dean with them, right into his body. He and his brother tumbled to the floor in a heap, elbows and knees going everywhere, as the plaster exploded behind them, a bullet wedging it’s way into the wood.

Scrambling around each other, both trying to get to their own guns, the brothers elbowed and kneed each other. Sam let out a hiss as Dean’s hip landed on his stomach, then a flinch at the sound of another fired bullet. Dropping his gun, Sam reached his hands up to Dean, stroking over his back hurriedly, searching for any damage. Only the thump of a body hitting the ground across from them slowed his frantic movements, drew his attention away from his brother.

Hole in his head, red spreading around his lifeless form, Dexter lay slumped.

Over the floor, Sam met the dead hunter’s glassy eyes, relief rushing through him. It swelled within him, taking up all the space that Sam’s powers had been occupying. They retreated, shrinking into a tiny seed that stayed pulsing in his chest, his head, reminding him to their presence, telling him they weren’t going anywhere, but laying restful for now. There was too much panic in his system to focus on them, so their pulsing died away into the background.

He’d just used his powers. _Dean_ had just seen him use his powers.

Gulping audibly, Sam kept his wide eyes fixed on Dexter’s glassy ones. Above him, his brother had stilled, green eyes studying the side of Sam’s face. He didn’t want to turn his head, didn’t want to see the disgust on his brother’s features. Knowing he couldn’t bare it if he saw it, Sam bit his lips and kept his gaze resolutely focused away from Dean. He wasn’t looking. He _wasn’t_.

“Sam,” Dean’s voice was soft. Gentle fingers hit the side of Sam’s face, the side hovering above the carpet. Delicate pressure was put on his cheek, encouraging Sam to turn his head. Setting his jaw, Sam kept his gaze fixed away from Dean. “Sam, look at me.”

“No,” he shook his head, no longer looking at Dexter’s corpse. Instead, his eyes fixed on the carpet, gaze flicking from crumbs, to clods of dirt, to suspicious stains.

“Come on, Sammy,” Dean cajoled, a tease in his voice. It almost sounded like Dean was smiling. Sam chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye, seeing the faint tell-tell swell of Dean’s cheek. He _was_ smiling. What was going on? “Look at me, Little Brother.”

It was the ‘little brother’ that did it, forcing Sam to drop his cheek into the carpet then roll his head around. His hair was tangling in the thinning fibres, making the back of his head itch. Hazel eyes fixed on Dean’s cheeks, freckles stark due to the amount of time Dean had spent outside recently. Still Sam found that he couldn’t lift his eyes, couldn’t make himself meet Dean’s mossy gaze. Guilt made him bite his lip, and to his shame a watery sheen covered his vision, blurring Dean’s freckles into one fuzzy mark. He only barely manage to keep a sob in.

“I’m sorry, Dean,” his voice was strangled. He lay limp on the floor, his brother still straddling him. Sharp knees pressed into his sides, his brother leaning forward enough that he could grasp at Sam’s face with one hand. In the other hand, Dean did something with the gun. Sam gulped, sure he knew what was coming. It was time; Dean was going to kill him. He’d said he would once, long ago, before Sam had killed Lilith, had started the Apocalypse. He’d put it off since then, had even brought Sam back from finishing the Trials out of some misplaced guilt, a need to protect Sam drilled into him from childhood, but he was going to do it now. Sam had proved himself a monster for the last time. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?” Dean asked. Next to Sam’s head, the soft metallic sound of the gun being placed on the floor surprised him, drawing his eyes to it. Dean’s fingers were loosening around it, leaving it where it sat. Confusion rushed through Sam, tensing his muscles further. His own hands were limp at his sides, fingers having long since slipped off the handle of his gun. “Saving my life?”

Sam shook his head, a sob sticking in his throat. He tried to talk around it, the words coming out thick, tar-like. “For using my powers,” Sam admitted, shame-faced and downtrodden. “For letting you down.”

“Okay, first,” Dean’s voice was harder, both hands clutching at Sam’s shoulders now. He shook Sam a little, just enough that his head rocked against the floor. “You didn’t let me down this time, Sammy. You just saved my life—”

“With my powers,” Sam insisted, raising his hands to push against Dean’s chest, hoping to push his brother off of him. Dean moved backwards, giving Sam the space to sit upright, but he didn’t move off of Sam’s lap. Instead, he settled himself more firmly, the warmth of his thighs pressing against Sam’s own cold ones. “I shouldn’t have.”

“Shouldn’t have saved my life?” Dean asked, eyebrow raised. Sam continued looking down, chin ducked against his neck. “Because Sammy, I could see where that bullet was aiming, and I wouldn’t have survived the hit.”

“I know,” Sam agreed, hands still pressed firmly against Dean’s chest. Dean’s own fingers slipped from Sam’s shoulders, dragging down Sam’s arms and curling around his wrists loosely. If Sam wanted to escape Dean’s hold, he could. Sam didn’t move. “That’s why I did it. But you have to believe me, Dean, I wouldn’t have used them otherwise. I _swear_!”

“Why not?” Dean’s voice was casual, simple. There was no hidden anger or barely contained revulsion underneath. It was startling enough that Sam looked up, finally meeting his big brother’s eyes. From what he could see, no hatred churned in those depths, but Sam had proved himself terrible at reading his brother time and time again. He _knew_ what Dean thought of psychics. He _knew_ what was going to happen here. Dean shrugged, jostling Sam’s arms. “It could come in handy.”

“But…” Sam spluttered, furrowing his brow at Dean. His hazel gaze switched from one green eye to the other, searching for something, anything, that might tell him what was going on. “But… The demon blood…”

“Are you on demon blood?” Dean asked, voice hardening a little. The lines of his body tensed up just a touch, enough to brace for bad news if it came his way. It was clear Dean didn’t believe Sam was on demon blood; his muscles weren’t tense enough for that. He was only asking, only making sure. Confusion swirled through Sam, beating at his mind and soul insistently. “Because I gotta say, Sam, you don’t seem like it.”

“Seem like it?” he repeated dumbly, brow still wrinkled. He could feel the Wi-Fi lines between his brows digging deeper, becoming canyons in his skin. “What…?”

“Sam, last time you were on demon blood, you were a dick,” Dean didn’t beat around the bush, but his voice wasn’t accusatory, not really. It was factual, his sentence delivered the same way he’d deliver lore to Sam, but it wasn’t angry, wasn’t burning with poorly concealed rage. Still, Sam couldn’t help his flinch. Dean sent a small grin his way, tightening his fingers around Sam’s wrists reassuringly. Sam curled his fingers just a touch, clutching softly at Dean’s tatty green shirt. “You’ve not been a dick in a while.”

Dean stopped here, considered. With a wrinkled nose, he added, “Well, not as much of one, anyway.” His eyes were twinkling when he teased, “You’re always kind of a dick. Comes with being such a know-it-all, I guess.”

“What?” Sam felt as if he had been shoved into an alternate reality. Nothing was happening like he thought it should, like he thought it would. It was like watching a scene in a movie you’d watched hundreds of times, knew off by heart, but this time the scene wasn’t playing out the way it should, the way it had every other time before. This was entirely new to Sam, and he was entirely thrown. “I don’t… I don’t understand, Dean. What?”

Letting out a frustrated breath that brushed over Sam’s skin, Dean reached up to grasp at Sam’s cheeks. Fingers dug in just a little, and Sam found himself being shaken again, not enough to make his teeth rattle, but enough to emphasise Dean’s annoyance.

“Are you on demon blood?” Dean asked again, voice slow and louder than it should be in the death-hushed room.

“No,” Sam promised, tightening his hold on Dean’s shirt. The material bunched up under his fingers, pulling it almost uncomfortably tight over Dean’s wide shoulders. “No, I’m not. You gotta believe me, Dean, I’m not.”

“I know,” Dean hushed, face serious. They shared a look, one that lasted for a long time. Silence fell in the room.

Only the sounds of their breathing could be heard, Sam still unsure about the whole situation. Knowing he was still on the verge of tears, he closed his eyes and tried to block everything else out. The warmth of Dean’s thighs, the pressure of his fingers, the smell of seeping blood and the eerie presence of Dexter’s body, lying on the floor across from them all faded away into the background as Sam let his mind wander. Inside, the kernel of power he could feel was still pulsing, dim under his guilt-ridden emotions.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, trying to drop his chin back down. Dean’s hold on his face prevented him.

“What are you sorry for _this_ time?” Dean sounded exasperated. When Sam opened his eyes, he caught the end of his brother’s exaggerated eye-roll. “Being an idiot that apologises for saving lives?”

“No,” Sam’s voice was thickening again, his Adam’s apple lumping up in his throat. “For not telling you.”

“Okay, yeah,” Dean nodded, voice hardening a little. “You should have told me, Sam,” he agreed, pads of his fingers pressing a little harder. Sam wondered if he’d bruise by the end of it, but determined that Dean’s grip wasn’t really that tight. “But I get why you didn’t tell me straight away.”

Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean, doubt painted over his features.

“You thought I’d hate you, didn’t you?” Dean asked, shoving Sam’s doubt away. Dean really _had_ known why he hadn’t said anything, hadn’t admitted anything. Sam should have known. Dean knew him best in the whole world; of course his brother knew why he had kept his powers to himself. “What I don’t get is why you took so long to tell me.”

“So long?” Sam asked, expression shifting into one of perplexation. Eyes studying Dean’s hardened features, Sam added, “I’ve only known for a few weeks.”

“For a few weeks?” It was Dean’s turn to make a bewildered face, eyebrows pulled down low into a befuddled furrow. “Sam, you’ve been using your powers for months. I’m not an idiot.”

“Months?” Sam asked, darting his eyes away from Dean and back again, dry tongue peeking out to lick chapped lips. The urge to shake his hair out of his face arose, a tickle building where Dean was pressing tangled strands to his skin. He resisted, knowing he’d look ridiculous flicking his hair back while Dean was still latched on to his cheeks, hands beginning to get clammy. “Dean, Castiel literally just told me a few weeks ago. Seriously.”

“No,” Dean shook his head, narrowed eyes studying Sam’s own. “Cas told you that they weren’t demonic a few weeks ago. You’ve been using them for months, Sam. Don’t bullshit me here, Man.”

“I’m really not, Dean,” Sam promised, letting go of Dean’s shirt to curl his fingers around Dean’s wrists in a mirror of their earlier position. “Trust me on this. I’ve really only known for a few weeks. And I was going to tell you, I swear.”

“Sammy,” Dean warned, resettling his knees on the thin carpet. The floorboards were digging into Sam’s ass, so they’d definitely be bothering Dean’s knee caps. “You used them to blow out a window months ago.”

The mention of the window threw Sam’s mind back, giving him glimpses of a dilapidated house and cascading glass.

“That was an arrow, Dean,” Sam explained patiently, concern scrunching his features. “Hercules’, remember?”

“Come on, Sam,” Dean groaned, shaking his head. “That arrow didn’t even hit the glass. You found it in the frame, remember?”

Giving a small shrug, Sam thinned his lips. So maybe Dean was telling the truth about that. That didn’t mean Sam _knew_ he’d done it.

“And before that,” Dean continued, oblivious to the revelations he was bringing up in Sam. “You probably had something to do with the knife not hitting you right in the ticker.”

Sam squinted at Dean for the use of the word ‘ticker’, but had to concede that he was probably right.

“I did think that was weird,” Sam allowed, loosening his grip on Dean’s wrists. Dean loosened his own grip on Sam’s face, fingers lightly brushing his skin instead of pressing in. Under his palms, Sam could feel the small bones in Dean’s wrists repositioning in his grip. “But I guess… I don’t know… It didn’t occur to me that it was _me_.”

Understanding and sympathy was in Dean’s green depths, and how often had Sam wanted to see that in his brother’s gaze before? Relief welled up within him, almost letting the threatening tears spill over. He folded his lips over his teeth and bit down, letting the pain distract him.

Casting his mind back to a few nights before that, Sam added, “And I guess it must have been my powers that shoved the lamp off the bedside table.”

Dean quirked an eyebrow, obviously not remembering what Sam was talking about.

“I had a nightmare,” Sam said, wriggling his toes. His brother’s weight wasn’t light on his thighs, and it was cutting off the blood flow to his feet. “I wondered how I’d caught the lamp when I hadn’t gone over to that side of the bed.”

“I remember,” Dean’s voice was filled with dawning realisation, face smoothing out from confusion into a cheeky grin as he met Sam’s eyes. Mirth sparkled in his irises, intensified by the watery haze Sam was seeing everything through. In his throat, his Adam’s apple was still sticking, making it hard to swallow. His chest felt tight with emotion. Dean’s voice was warm when he asked, “Dude, did you really not notice you were using your powers?”

“I can’t believe you did,” Sam admitted, voice thick. “Why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“I was waiting for you to say something,” Dean admitted, ducking his head bashfully. A light flush was working it’s way onto his cheeks, drowning out his freckles. “I wanted to see how long it took you.”

“Why?” Sam asked, worry seeping in again. Breathing was becoming a chore, but he worked his best to draw shaky breaths in regularly. “To watch if I had gone dark-side?”

“No,” Dean shook his head, embarrassment warbling his voice. “To see if you trusted me enough to tell me.” He held up a hand on one side of Sam’s face, cutting of Sam’s words before he’d even begun. “It was stupid, I know. Why would you trust me? But I trust you, Sammy. I knew you weren’t going dark-side.”

Shock rushed through Sam, pushing the air out of his chest violently. Dean had admitted he trusted him, something he had never thought he’d hear from his brother again, something he knew he didn’t deserve, yet here Dean was, offering that trust freely. God, but Sam didn’t know what to do with it. Tears welled up in his eyes, stinging them with the salt, before beading up and falling over his cheekbones. Pale thumbs shifted, wiping them away, and Sam sent a watery grin up at his brother.

“I should have,” Sam admitted, tightening his grip around Dean’s wrists. He was clutching at them desperately, his own thumbs brushing in circles over his brother’s scarred skin. “I should have told you, Dean. It was me,” he felt a sob well up, let it out as quietly as he could. “ _I_ didn’t trust _me_.”

“I know, Little Brother,” Dean assured, letting go of Sam’s face to pull him into an embrace. Sam felt his face crushed into the crook of his brother’s neck, felt as Dean’s skin became slick with tears and snot. He could just picture Dean’s face when he pulled back, disgust wrinkling his nose as he wiped with a sleeve at the wet spot, complaining to Sam at his lack of hygiene. Through his quietly controlled sobbing, Sam let his lips draw up into a smile. “Let it out. Just let it out, Sammy. It’s okay.”

They stayed like that for a few minutes, Dean rubbing the top of Sam’s back and running calloused fingers through hunt-tangled hair, Sam regathering himself. Disguised sniffles tapered away into wet breaths, Sam reaching up to rub fingers over his eyelids, hoping to wipe away as much evidence of tears as he could. He knew he would still have red-rimmed eyes, knew his face would still be blotchy, but that was okay. Sam wouldn’t want to talk about it, so Dean wouldn’t mention it.

After a while, Sam finally pushed back. He didn’t meet Dean’s eyes at first, instead looking at Dean’s chest as he clapped his brother on the shoulder.

Steadying himself, he said, “Dude, you’re heavy. Get off of me.”

“ _I’m_ heavy?” Dean asked, climbing to his feet. He reached a hand down for Sam to grasp, pulling his Sam upright. “I seem to remember you pulling me over pretty easily, little brother” he teased, dropping Sam’s hand. Sam started rolling his ankles in front of him, wriggling his toes and shaking his legs in the hopes of getting the blood flowing again. A horrible, prickly sensation of pins and needles was working it’s way up his legs, making him wonder if his feet were really on the floor. It kind of felt like he was floating. “Besides, _you’re_ the Sasquatch. You’ve gotta weigh a tonne.”

Dean paused here, looking him up and down.

“Maybe even two,” Dean decided, flashing a grin Sam’s way. It burst into a full out chuckle when Sam sent him a ‘bitchface’ – Dean’s word – jutting out his chin and huffing through his nose.

“Dean?” Sam asked, catching his brother’s attention. Dean looked at Sam. One look, and his face fell serious once again. “You really don’t mind?”

“No, Sammy,” Dean assured, heading over to Dexter’s body. Sam knew what his brother was doing; they couldn’t very well leave a dead body in this house, and even if Dexter had gone crazy he deserved a hunter’s funeral. He had done some good in the world after all, saved people and all that. It wasn’t his fault that the death of his daughter had snapped his mind. “I don’t mind.” As Dean leaned down and started dragging Dexter’s corpse, he said, “In fact, I reckon it could be useful. You couldn’t bippity-boppity-boo this guy up, could you?”

Chuckling, Sam reached inside of himself, searching for the kernel of power and teasing it out. It took him a while, but eventually Dexter was floating a few feet off of the ragged carpet.

With some difficulty, and a near-drop of the body, Sam managed to get Dexter moving steadily in the air, trailing after Dean as his brother left the building. Watching Dean’s face carefully, searching for any sign of discomfort his brother might be feeling, Sam felt himself relax into his job when he saw only contentment on Dean’s face, mixed with a little tiredness from a hunt well done. 

“Jerk,” he called, hearing the happiness in his voice as he spoke. It was good, a nice change. “I’m doing all the work.”

“Yeah, yeah, Bitch,” Dean countered, waving him off. “If you’ve got Fairy-Godmother powers, you might as well use them. Not all of us are secretly Merlin.”

“Merlin wasn’t psychic.” Sam shot back. Dean only stuck his middle finger up in response.

Shaking his head, Sam trailed after Dean and into the garden, setting Dexter gently down near the door. Everything wasn’t solved by this, Sam might always find his powers distasteful, dirty, but knowing that his brother didn’t hate him was enough. They could work on everything else, could work on growing his powers and work on his acceptance of himself. For now, Sam was okay. Dean accepted him, still wanted to hunt with him, didn’t blame him… It was more than Sam could have asked for, more than he could have hoped for.

With a small smile, Sam went to join his brother in building a pyre. It was an end for Dexter, but a new beginning for them, and the future looked good.


End file.
